The microwave oven has proven increasingly popular in virtually every kitchen, from restaurants to private homes and even to the kitchen areas of most workplaces. Many employees prefer to bring their lunch from home in order to keep to a special diet, save money, enjoy particularly favorite foods not otherwise readily available, etc., and the microwave oven has enabled such employees to have a hot lunch with a minimum of time and preparation of the food. Even in the home, the microwave has made it possible to heat or cook food or warm leftovers in a minimum amount of time.
Containers having separate sections, but being monolithically formed as a single unit, are well known for such uses to provide for the separation of different types of foods (e.g., entrees, salads, desserts, etc.), but a problem arises when foods requiring different temperatures in order to be palatable, are stored in such containers. As the entire container must be placed in the oven, all of the foods therein are heated approximately to the same extent, resulting in foods normally eaten at room temperature or chilled, being heated so they are no longer palatable.
Numerous mating separable containers have been developed in the past in order to overcome this or other problems, but none are known which also provide for the storage of the utensils (fork, knife, spoon) which are needed to eat the meal contained within the containers. These utensils must be carried separately, and in fact in some instances persons will store the utensils within an otherwise empty container for use with the meal. This is particularly hazardous with microwave heated foods, as metal utensils which are inadvertently left in a container are prone to absorbing a great deal of microwave energy and becoming extremely hot, possibly melting the container in which they are stored and/or damaging, the microwave oven due to reflected energy.
The need arises for mating, separable containers capable of containing the various food items which might normally be desired by a person for a meal. The containers must provide for ease of separation in order to allow the heating of only those foods desired, with other foods being separated in their separable containers, from those being heated. The containers must also provide a means for the carriage and storage of the eating utensils required, which storage and carriage means also provides the mutual attachment means for the joined containers. The utensils must be removed from the containers when they are separated for the placement of one or more of the containers in the microwave oven, thus precluding their inadvertent placement in the oven and any possible subsequent damage. Finally, the containers must provide means for securing the utensils in place to preclude inadvertent separation of the utensils from the containers, and thus to preclude inadvertent separation of the containers from one another, until desired.